Kolodko, former finance minister of Poland, considers the links between issues of globalization and post-communist transition, the two most important economic features of the turn of the century. He discusses the pattern of economic growth and contraction of the past fifty years, and reviews the options for the next half century. He accounts for the severity of the transitional recession in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union as a result of both the legacies of the past and current policy mistakes, but demonstrates how structural reforms and gradual institutional building have enabled some postsocialist economies to recover. He proposes that, within the wider context of globalization, several of these emerging market economies will be able to catch up with the more advanced industrial countries, but emphasises the need for quality growth policies and continuing coordination between development strategies and efforts toward structural reform.

Grzegorz W. Kolodko is John C. Evans Professor in European Studies at the University of Rochester, and Director of TIGER - Transformation,Integration and Globalization Economic Research - at the Leon Kozminski Academy of Entrepreneurship and Management(WSPiZ).